Stars: ★★★★★ (Study This Book)
Premise
Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus by Lois Tverberg examines the words of Jesus through the lens of a first century Jewish man living in Israel, since that is exactly what Jesus was. Jewish people would have heard the Scriptures that we call the Old Testament preached on a cycle for their entire lives. This oral tradition is an excellent, effective method of memorization. When Jesus preached, he referenced these Scriptures even when we don’t see them quoted. His listeners would have clearly understood references to the “Son of Man,” to a “den of robbers,” and to the “third day.” Before I read this book, those references for me were almost exclusively New Testament references.
We read Jesus’s words as Westerners in the 21st century, a world bathed in logic and individualism, and we overlay that viewpoint on the lessons. In doing so we miss, and even misunderstand, many of the lessons Jesus would have expected His listeners to glean from His teachings.
Loved
- Logic and Imagery
In the Western world, we have an expectation that we can apply logic and reason to everything. It is often how we try to explain our circumstances. It is why we can even debate the existence of God. Tverberg makes the fascinating observation that nowhere in Genesis do we find an argument for the existence of God because that was not even a question at the time. Each people had their own gods with different personalities and perspectives, but their existence was unquestionable. (This is an excellent book explaining how God took on idea of lesser gods with the plagues.)
The Hebrew language is steeped in imagery rather than logic. Throughout the Bible, there are different trees mentioned, and the listeners would have understood the important differences in meaning between the acacia tree and the tamarisk tree. As a American with zero interest or understanding of botany, I never knew that these trees meant something deeper to Israelites.
Tverberg makes an important point that neither logic nor imagery is better, but they are different. In order to have a more complete understanding of the Bible, we need to be able to translate between the two instead of forcing the images of the Bible into our logical minds of today. - American individualism distorts the community message of the Bible
Growing up, I often skipped the whole “begat” passages. Did it matter who was the son of whom for generations? Yes. Yes, it did; or God would not have included it in the Bible. These lists established Jesus as the Son of David. It provided his identity. The same way that we would introduce ourselves as from a specific state or having a certain job, the people of Jesus’ time introduced themselves as part of a family, part of a tribe. It was their very identity. They understood that the needs of the tribe outweighed their own needs and acted accordingly. The message of the Bible is written to Israel as a community, but we often miss that message because we have been raised to think we are the most important person in our world.
In Western society, we forget that we are fundamentally small. Tverberg walks the reader through an exercise in viewing the expanse of the universe and then zooming in until you find your house and yourself on Earth. The exercise is to remind us in the grand scheme of everything, one human in incredibly small. The kids and I were looking at pictures of the planets the other day, and comparisons of Earth to the other planets always takes me back a little. Our entire planet is tiny, and I am only one person on that planet. Our current culture teaches that our happiness is the most important goal we can strive for, that self-care reins supreme, and that our world should revolve around our needs. The Bible roundly rejects these ideas, and places the greater good over the good of ourselves.
I found the explanation of Genesis 2:7 fascinating. The fact that we were formed by God’s hand and that God breathed life into Adam shows that we are important to Him. We have a special relationship with him. We are valuable. The fact that we come from dust and will return to dust is a Biblical image symbolizing insignificance. The verse itself is a paradox that we miss in Western culture because we are focused on the physical details of the verse. It has layers of meanings that we miss due to language and culture. - Thirty Vocabulary Words
This list is a valuable resource in understanding the deeper meaning of the Scriptures. The author explains early in the book that English words have very exact meanings, but Hebrew words have broad, sometimes apparently contradictory meanings, that are understood based on context. She lists thirty Hebrew words and the shades of meaning that they can have. One example is yirah, which is often translated as fear. The Hebrew word can have both negative and positive connotations – it can mean the same as our words for “be afraid” but it can also mean “respect” or “revere” or “worship.” We can miss these shades of meaning because our words in English do not often do the same thing.
The list she provides at the back allows the Bible reader to see more to a passage than we see on the first reading. It allows us a glimpse into the layers that exist in many verses that can otherwise seem so straightforward to us.
Didn’t Love
This book is one that will require multiple reads, not that it is necessarily a drawback to the book but good to understand going in. Tverberg cites a multitude of Scriptures, and it takes a time investment to look them all up to understand her points. The questions and recommendations at the end of each chapter are not quick exercises that can be completed in five minutes. These are time-consuming undertakings, which are all well-worth the spiritual benefits, but this is not a book I was able to read in a few hours and move to the next one. It requires focus and attention. I will be reading again soon to get even more out of it.
Lessons Learned
- Reading the Torah and Haftarah (Calendar of Readings) Tverberg walks through the way that Jewish teaching happened both in ancient times and today. There is a passage from the Torah (the Books of Moses) and then a haftarah (Prophets). The passages read together are linked in some way, and finding the link can bring a deeper understanding to the passages.
- It is imperative that we memorize Scripture. Only in committing the Scriptures to memory can we easily make the connections the author describes. Using blueletterbible.com is a great way to do research on a specific verse and a specific word, but Tverberg clearly explains how many connections Jesus’ listeners made while He was speaking because they knew their Scriptures. Imagine how many additional connections and lesson we would get from our Bible readings if we could make those connections instantly instead of having to go back and do extensive research to figure them out.
We are using this resource as a family to memorize Scriptures together (Simply Charlotte Mason Scripture Memory System). The process is simple and takes less than 10 minutes a day. It is based on oral repetition, the same way the Israelites learned the Scriptures 2,000 years ago.
I am excited to take the lessons I have learned from this book and apply them to my own life and also give my children a more complete perspective on how to read the Bible as they grow.